Just the two points since the others are just chest thumping.
There is no chest thumping anywhere in my posts - those are the facts. If I indicated that India could not 'obliterate' Pakistan with its nukes or capture any territory, I said the same for Pakistan. If you have reason to disagree with what you call 'chest thumping' please provide the facts to refute me.
1) Exactly and that holds for India too. Pakistan cannot dictate how we respond in case of usage of Tac nukes and that has been the crux of my argument against Pakistanis so far.
Your argument is flawed since it implies that India would take the first step to initiate nuclear holocaust in the sub-continent. Pakistan's use of tactical nukes will be limited and for defensive purposes on its own soil in case of an invasion. That is not equivalent to launching nukes at another nations cities or military on that nations soil.
Look at it this way - there are only two things that can happen if Indian IBG's penetrate Pakistani territory. Either they hold that territory until Pakistani forces are defeated comprehensively (extremely unlikely even with Pakistan sticking to just conventional munitions) or the IBG's get decimated, either through conventional munitions or a combination of conventional and unconventional munitions. If the latter case happens (with tactical nukes), Pakistan will know that it can expect the same in case of an incursion into Indian territory (which would be tempting since Pakistan will have destroyed a large chunk of India's offensive formations at that point), and so will resist from doing so.
Now India is faced with a bad and worse situation.
1. (Bad situation) It can accept the destruction of its offensive formations, take solace in the fact that it made a point and inflicted a cost on Pakistan as well, and cease hostilities with a stalemate, with no offensive goals accomplished and no bargaining power over Pakistan.
2. (Worse situation) It can escalate the war into a nuclear exchange, still gain absolutely no military advantage since its own military, cities and infrastructure will come under a retaliatory Pakistani nuclear attack, suffer billions in damage, millions dead, and still end the war in a stalemate with both sides exhausted and severely damaged, and set back decades.
What advantage do you see in option 2? Or, what advantage can you see in option 2 that I have neglected?
2) The exact numbers and the yield of Indian nukes are a closely guarded secret which is not even disclosed to Ministers and I thus I find n justification for your declaration.
But a common sense will tell that 9 (possibly more) Indian reactors are pumping our fuel for our nukes and with the Exemptions granted and Uranium starting to come from outside and huge financial resources it is anybody's guess of our ability to beef up numbers as and when required.
Pakistan's actual warhead count is secret as well, yet several international organizations have come to similar conclusions about the size of their )India and Pakistan's) respective arsenals. I am going by that. At most India has a few hundred assembled warheads and missiles to carry them into Pakistan (we are not putting together legos here) - stockpiled fueled cannot be included the estimates because of the complexity of assembling the warheads and delivery systems and mating them. There won't be time for that in an India-Pakistan war.
As for the yield -
Link
A nuclear exchange with India is certain suicide for Pakistan as we know it now and India too will be severley damaged. Though not to the extent of Pakistan.
The capability to do so means nothing. And even at that yield 'obliterating Pakistan' is not possible. These 'obliteration' claims are fanboy fantasies. India and Pakistan need the megaton capacity of the US and USSR, and the ability to deliver hundreds of warheads that actually detonate, to achieve 'obliteration' of the other.
BTW, it is precisely these claims of 'obliteration', that you and Bang Galore before you, have made that are 'chest thumping' and fanboy fantasies.
